


That’s the Beat of a Heart

by Highkingeliot



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 17:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20727959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Highkingeliot/pseuds/Highkingeliot
Summary: Alice thinks she has found a spell to bring back Quentin... the team hits some bumps along the way and Eliot has to sing his way out of this dilemma.





	That’s the Beat of a Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This all ends well I promise.

Margo was sitting on the floor in front of the couch. Not dressed to the nines as she usually was but still a few steps higher than the rest of the group. 

Eliot came sauntering in. She could tell he had been drinking. 

“El, we need to talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about Margo.” He slurred as he made his way towards the stairs. 

“Eliot.”

“Fuck you Marg...o...” he said slowly and very calculated. He felt himself get weaker. 

Margo sat there and watched him and he slumped against the wall and slowly slid down. 

He was sitting on the floor and he pulled out a semi mangled iPod. 

“What the hell is that?”

“It was.... “ he couldn’t even complete the thought before he started crying. “Fuck this!! How could he think... wait...how could I let him think I didn’t love him?!”

“El, there’s nothing you could have done.”

“There’s a million things I could have done. I could have told him yes, I could have asked him out, I could have begged for his forgiveness, I could have given half of a shit about him more than myself!!”

“El...”

“No. I don’t want to hear ‘oh you were possessed’ I killed that thing to save him, then it took me over and now he’s gone. Fucking gone Margo, do you understand that?”

“Well, there is one thing, it’s one hell of a long shot but if he’s not fully crossed over, it could work.” Alice chimes in as she pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose. 

Eliot got up off the floor. He clamored a bit and broke a picture hanging on the wall, but he made it to his feet fairly quickly. 

“Tell me.” He walked over and put his hands on Alice’s shoulders.

“It’s a ritual. Only one person even tried it and it didn’t work.” She said matter of fact.

“We have to.” Eliot started to cry again. 

Alice felt terrible. She knew what a mess Eliot was. She’d never seen him cry, save for the funeral they did by the fire. 

“Well, we have one problem...” she started. 

“We need the body don’t we.” Margo snapped.

“Well... yes.” Alice looked down at the floor. 

Eliot fell to his knees. 

“Fuck it all. I can’t even get him back.” He didn’t care who saw, he just started to cry. 

“Technically we only need his heart, I can magic the rest out of this.” She held up a large bag. “Clay, Fogg let me have it and said if I was stupid enough to try then so be it. Guess him drinking the good whiskey helps sometimes.” She snapped in her usual Alice style. 

She brushed her hair out of her face. 

“We don’t have his fucking body Alice, what the fuck makes you think we’d have his heart? Did you grab it when you ran for your life?!”

“No. But something that was kind of his heart may work.” 

“Like what Alice?!” 

“I don’t know but at least I’m fucking trying and not just pissing my life away getting drunk and crying on the floor!”

“What the fuck do you propose I do?!” 

“Try something!! Fight to bring him back! If you truly love him so god damned much then fucking do something!”

Eliot just stood there and stared at her. He did love Quentin more than he loved anything else. How could Alice stand there and even accuse Eliot of not loving him?

Eliot grabbed the book from her hands. He flipped through a few pages, and stopped suddenly.

“Alice.... did you read this?” He held it up to her. 

Margo peered over and read: “a soul for a soul, one may never be whole again and the other may never be again. It’s a risk you have to take. The souls, should they truly be parts of one whole can become whole again in each other but only if the divination between the two is truly whole.”

Margo looked around the room. She studied Alice and Eliot for what seemed like forever. 

“That’s why I need you. You’re the other part.” Alice looked down, her voice was shaking. 

“I love Quentin, I want him in my life but I know it’s different, I love him but he is the love of your life.” She looked up and Eliot saw a tear roll down her cheek. A genuine tear, she meant it. 

“Alice...”

“Don’t argue Eliot. I’ve spent this whole time trying to convince myself it was me but I know it’s not.” She flatly spit out. 

Eliot had no words. He wanted to argue because of the state he was in but he was just far too tired. 

Margo flopped through a few more pages to discover the last part of this ritual. 

“El... there’s more...” she said cautiously. 

“Well I’m already risking literally half I am.”

“Well, I hope you enjoyed those musicals in high school.” She shot Eliot a look of ‘you may not like this’ and handed him the book. 

Eliot was quiet for a while. He concentrated on the pages and then slowly looked up. 

He didn’t say anything and just handed the book to Alice. 

“Yeah, I know. It says the true love of his life will know the song of his heart to make it beat again. I was able to get everything else we need but not the heart.” 

She set the bag down and she just felt like collapsing right along side it. 

“What do we do now? We don’t have his heart.” Margo looked over the ingredients Alice had collected. 

“Maybe it’s like a figurative thing?” Alice softly offered. 

“Ok, even if it is figurative...” Margo started before looking over to see Eliot flinching and fidgeting. “... El, the fuck is your deal?”

“His heart...” He whispered. 

“What?”

“His heart... it’s... Fillory.”

“Well we can’t fit a whole world in this clay El.” Margo put her hands on her hips and gave that basically copyrighted Margo judgment look.

“No.... just...” Eliot said quietly. 

He didn’t say any more and turned and walked upstairs. There were loud bangs and a few choice curses and even a small shattering noise. After a few more crashes and a loud thud, Eliot came walking back downstairs. 

He held a charred circle and a card. 

“El?”

“I know.... I should have left it, but I couldn’t.” He held up a blackened version of Quentin’s crown from Fillory and a card. The card had Quentin’s name on one side and the Brakebills crest on the other. 

He set the card down and set the crown on top of it. 

“The two halves, the day our lives started to the day it ended, his crown wouldn’t burn, the edges are charred and its burnt but it’s all still there. And there’s this.” He pulled a charred book cover from a bag. 

“Is that...?” Alice questioned.

“Fillory.” He basically whispered. 

He set it down with the crown. He sat there and looked at it for a minute. 

“Ok so we have what we are using?” Alice asked slowly trying to calculate if this could even actually work. 

“It’s worth a shot.” Margo added. 

Eliot just looked around the room and slowly nodded. 

The three worked tirelessly to put everything together. Alice showed the others how to help craft the body parts and they worked on enchanting them together. They put the crown and card and charred book cover in where the heart would be. 

It took them all night and most of the next day. They laid down and slept for a short while, mostly cause the spell said the ingredients needed to sit. Eliot barely slept and every time he woke up he looked around to make sure this was all still real.

The next night came and it was a full moon. Just what they needed to make this work... assuming it would. 

They went outside and buried the body they made and enchanted it as instructed in the book. 

“Ok. The song. El?”

“Yeah...” he looked around. 

He pulled up the playlist. The most played song. That had to be it. Eliot looked around at everyone.

“It said his true love and other half would know the song of his heart to get it beating again.” Alice stated as if reciting facts for an oral exam. 

“Ok El, so what’s his song?” Margo looked over and tried to see the playlist. 

Eliot shook his head. He put the iPod in his pocket. 

“What’s the song Eliot?” Alice probed. 

“That’s not it. That’s not the song.”

“El, it’s his most played song...” Margo started to rationalize. 

“It has to be either Taylor Swift or Imagine Dragons.” Alice quipped. 

“It’s the most played El....” 

“Yeah, the one his head told him to listen to, he liked the lyrics and the melody....” he stated not making eye contact but instead staring down at the fresh grave. 

“El...” 

“Now I've had the time of my life  
No, I never felt like this before  
Yes I swear it's the truth  
And I owe it all to you  
'Cause I've had the time of my life  
And I owe it all to you....” 

He started to sing.   
“El, we only get one shot at this...” Margo cautioned.  
Without even looking up Eliot kept singing. 

“I've been waiting for so long  
Now I've finally found someone to stand by me  
We saw the writing on the wall  
And we felt this magical fantasy  
Now with passion in our eyes  
There's no way we could disguise it secretly  
So we take each others hand  
'Cause we seem to understand the urgency  
Just remember  
You're the one thing  
I can't get enough of  
So I'll tell you something  
This could be love”

“I hope you’re right... only 1 more hour to go.” Alice chimed in.   
The ritual was the longest spell any of the students had ever attempted.   
Eliot paced by the grave singing for the whole time. He didn’t stop. Alice and Margo has taken seats on either end of the grave and watched Eliot singing and pacing. Occasionally some tears would fall and he’d pay them no mind and just kept singing.   
The sun slowly started to rise.   
“El, I think that’s it. We tried.” Margo said quietly, her voice shaking.   
Eliot didn’t look away from the fresh dirt beneath his feet and just kept singing.   
Alice looked at Margo and back at Eliot.   
“I've had the time of my life  
No, I never felt this way before (never felt this way)  
Yes I swear it's the truth  
And I owe it all to you”

More tears were falling as he just kept singing the song over and over again. 

Alice had made her way over to Margo.

“Do we get him to stop?” 

“I don’t know if we can.” Margo whispered. 

Eliot felt weak and fell to his knees. He kept crying and laid down on top of the fresh dirt now wet by the morning dew and Eliot’s tears. 

“'Cause I've had the time of my life (I had time of my life)  
And I've searched through every open door (you do it to me, baby)  
Till I found the truth (you do it to me, baby)  
And I owe it all to you”

He held the last note out a bit and you could hear his voice shake and crack. Alice and Margo could hear the hoarse tone of his voice and debated dragging him away. 

Just before they did, Eliot grasped his chest and cried and softly kept singing through his pain. 

Alice and Margo watched as a small flower pushed its way through the dirt. Eliot continued to sing, as much as he could. 

Something started pushing dirt out of the way and they saw a hand. 

Margo screamed. 

Another hand made its way out before both worked to dig into the dirt. 

Eliot kept singing. 

The dirt was pushed aside and the figure sat up. 

Alice and Margo watched in disbelief, they couldn’t believe it had worked. While they couldn’t be sure until they heard him speak and saw him move and were sure it was actually Quentin. 

Eliot didn’t notice. He had his eyes closed and just kept singing. He was kneeling by the grave and had his eyes shut and was crying, voice shaking and him trembling. 

He felt two arms wrap around him and hold him and out of instinct he wrapped his arms around the one holding him. 

“I had the time of my life  
And I owe it all to you”

A second voice joined in. Eliot slowly opened his eyes. Quentin was there, or so he thought. Was he dreaming?

He held him at arms length and looked at him. He slowly reached out and brushed the hair out of Quentin’s face. 

“Quentin?”

“Hey El.” 

Eliot couldn’t form words and just hugged him so hard. 

“Please tell me I’m not dreaming.” Eliot mumbled into Quentin’s neck.

“If you are then so am I.” He laughed.

“Oh my god it fucking worked.” Eliot cried.

“I’m back? I’m here.”

They hugged each other for a moment before Eliot and Quentin helped each other inside.


End file.
